Curriculum
Along with the standard courses that comprise the core curriculum for all schools of pharmacy in Japan, we offer exclusive courses that can be classified into three areas: learning, discovering, and applying drugs.
Students first complete general education courses that not only provide a range of knowledge useful for social development, but also teach the fundamentals required to understand subsequent specialized education courses. Students then take basic and specialized pharmaceutical courses, in line with our core curriculum.
Next, we provide a series of lectures―exclusive to University of Toyama―that are designed to help students become true medicinal specialists. Further support is offered in the form of our Technical English Course, TOEIC Preparation Program (at the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology), and National Exam Preparation Program (at the Department of Pharmacy).
- What should I study before entering the university?
- Pharmaceutical sciences cover a diverse range of study areas. Language skills—both Japanese and English—will be necessary regardless of the field you would like to succeed in. We therefore recommend that students acquire basic skills in chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, and languages.
- I have not studied biology in high school. Will I be able to catch up in the biology class?
- You don't need to worry. We take that into consideration and design courses so that students without a biology background can still follow the classes. However—and this holds for all courses, not just biology—university study demands a degree of voluntary effort if you want to make progress. When you encounter something you don't understand, don't just skip it. Ask questions.
- What is the core curriculum?
- The core curriculum is a nationwide guideline for selecting and organizing content for pharmaceutical education and was developed for students aiming to become a pharmacist or pharmaceutical researcher. It is divided into seven areas—pharmaceutical physics; pharmaceutical chemistry; pharmaceutical biology; health and the environment; pharmaceuticals and diseases; drug discovery; and pharmaceutical sciences and society—but these are all closely interrelated. The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences covers the content of the core curriculum in the following classes: Pharmaceutical Physics, Analytical Chemistry, Biophysics and Biochemistry, Structural Biology, Organic Chemistry, Natural Medicines, Synthetic Chemistry, Basic Biochemistry, Basic Microbiology, Immunology, Public Health Science, Pharmaceutics, Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacology.
